Chapter 3 - A Name Jonah Knew by Heart
Jonah read Kendra's message three times before handing Imani the phone. She knew at once what he was thinking. His younger brother, Darnell, ran deliveries for St. Agnes Hall. He had learned to write his capital letters in the same cramped style their father used on the labels of toolboxes. Jonah had put him forward for the job last summer, when Darnell needed steady work after his divorce. Every Sunday Darnell brought Laila comic books from the discount store and called her Professor because she corrected his arithmetic.
“Don't decide he's guilty from somebody's handwriting,” Imani said.
“I haven't decided anything.” Jonah was already putting on his jacket.
“Then stay and listen.”
Imani remained under observation until the maternity team confirmed she could go home with instructions to return if concerning symptoms developed. Her hip was bruised, and she was advised to rest. The hospital social worker asked whether the family had a safe, warm place to sleep. Jonah said the heat at Maple Court was unreliable. It was the first time he'd said those words in a room where nobody could tell him to stop complaining.
The social worker gave them information for emergency housing assistance and offered to contact a local service with them. Imani accepted. She had spent years believing that asking for help would make her seem irresponsible. Now she imagined Bernice standing on the portico in her green dress. Pride hadn't warmed a single one of them. Rochelle's sister let the Prices stay in her spare room for the morning while Jonah fetched clothes and medications from their apartment.
Maple Court was a redbrick building near an elementary school, with twenty-four apartments and a front entrance painted green by residents who'd chipped in for the paint. The windows of the top floor were fogged from portable kettles. On the stairs, Jonah met Mrs. Alvarez from 2B carrying a bucket of water because her bathroom pipes had begun to freeze. He helped her set it down.
“Management says a repair crew came,” she told him.
“Did they?”
“A man looked at the boiler room door. Didn't open it.”
Jonah reached their apartment. Laila's school drawing still hung over the kitchen table: their family at their kitchen table, with a fourth little person labeled BABY HOPE. They hadn't chosen the baby's name. Laila had, provisionally, and nobody had the heart to correct her. The rent notice on the counter included a thirty-eight-dollar charge for an emergency heater Jonah had never seen. He photographed it and packed the inhaler spacer, Imani's maternity folder, and the cardigan with the torn sleeve.
Darnell answered on the fourth ring. “I'm driving. What's wrong?”
“Meet me by the depot, ten minutes.”
“Jonah, I'm on a run for Meredith.”
“Then tell her you're taking your break.”
The brothers met beside a row of city buses dusted with snow. Darnell was shorter, wore a knitted cap pulled low over his ears, and looked exhausted. Jonah showed him the delivery photograph. His brother exhaled slowly.
“That's my writing,” he said.
“Tell me why.”
“They made me update the spreadsheet after hours. I marked what the system said went out.”
“Did you take any blankets to Maple Court?”
“No.”
“So you wrote that they were delivered even though they weren't.”
Darnell rubbed his face. “I asked the warehouse manager. He said the shipment was being held for the gala. Meredith said donors needed proof of distribution before releasing another payment. I figured the blankets would go out the next morning.”
“Nine days ago, Darnell.” Jonah held the phone between them. “Mrs. Walker was outside in thirty-degree weather. Laila was inside a cold apartment. Nine days.”
“I know.”
“No, you knew the boxes were there. That's different.”
Darnell's eyes reddened. “If I refused, I'd lose the route. I'm behind on child support, and I finally got a schedule that lets me see my boy on Saturdays. I kept thinking I'd fix it when the next shipment went out.”
“You don't get to use your son to explain what happened to mine.” Jonah walked away before he said something worse. He sat on the bus depot's concrete steps until the cold steadied him. Then he called Imani and told her exactly what Darnell had admitted.
She was silent a long time. “Ask him where they took the blankets.”
Jonah looked across the lot. Darnell hadn't left. He stood with both hands on the hood of his delivery van, waiting as if a punishment might arrive faster if he stayed put. Jonah asked the question. Darnell gave him the address of a commercial storeroom near the old rail station and offered to show a supervisor the access log.
“Don't go in there,” Imani told Jonah when he repeated the address. “Don't touch a thing. We need somebody who can actually make them produce records.”
She called Kendra. Kendra had spent the morning telling her mother what happened and expecting to be scolded for risking her scholarship. Instead, her mother said, “You didn't take that scholarship to learn how to look away.” They contacted the charity's independent treasurer, a retired accountant named Ruthie James, using a number printed on the public donor brochure. Ruthie listened, asked them to preserve their messages, and said she would request an emergency meeting of the board. She could not promise what the board would decide.
By late afternoon, Imani's phone contained twenty-one messages from neighbors. Some were photographs of unheated rooms. One was a voice message from Bernice, insisting she was fine and then coughing so hard she couldn't finish her sentence. Another came from a father in 4A, who said his daughter had stopped wearing her winter gloves to bed because she wanted to save them for school. Imani played that message for Jonah. He sat beside her on Rochelle's sofa, unable to find a word big enough.
May you like
Then Kendra arrived carrying an envelope she hadn't dared photograph at the hall. The envelope held Laila's original handwritten list of thirteen names, taken from Imani's work locker. Every name had been copied into the charity's official distribution log. At the bottom was a line for recipient acknowledgment. Imani's name had been typed below a signature she had never made.
Darnell's handwriting was on the delivery column. The forged signature beside Imani's name belonged to someone else. And the date printed above it was tomorrow.
